Six high school students from across Chinook’s Edge School Division weren’t about to pass up their chance to reach for the sky.
The cohort, which was comprised of students from schools including Olds, Sundre and Didsbury, completed on Saturday, April 27 the roughly one-month introductory course that was made possible courtesy of a partnership between the school division and the Sky Wings Aviation Academy.
Brooke Rosevear, a Grade 11 student at Sundre High School who harbours a passion for maths and sciences, was among them.
“I’m really glad to partake in this opportunity,” Rosevear told the Albertan during a phone interview.
Although she continues to consider other potential career paths in other fields that also involve science, technology, engineering and mathematics, she relished the chance to learn more about what’s involved in airport operations.
“Aviation is definitely along that path of math and sciences and physics that I really love,” she said.
The program took off on April 9 and involved a total of nine evening and weekend classes in ground school training at Sky Wings Aviations near the Red Deer Regional Airport.
There was also another group of six students from the Red Deer Catholic Regional School. And although students were responsible for covering the costs of their books, Skywings Aviation sponsored the full expense of the ground school training for each student, said Laurette Woodward, the school division’s communications coordinator.
“Our instructors are pretty cool. They’ve let us go out and shown us all the controls on the plane, all the parts of the plane,” said Rosevear.
While the program certainly offers a glimpse of what all is involved in becoming a pilot, the course also provided insight into other crucial roles involved in ensuring safe air travel. After all, the world of aviation needs more than just highly-skilled people to fly the planes; air traffic controllers, technicians and ground crews are critical to making sure the aircraft navigate and operate safely and reliably.
“We actually got to go up to the control tower at the Sky Wings place and see a couple planes land and take off,” said Rosevear.
“The topics have kind of varied from instruments to human factors to meteorology, to just parts of the plane,” she said.
But for Rosevear, the highlight was the opportunity to crunch numbers.
“Definitely the math portion of it,” she said in response to being asked what was her main takeaway from the experience.
“There was a lot of charts that you could use to discover how much weight you could have on your plane and how much allotted fuel you could have,” she said, adding the charts helped determine how much fuel a plane required based on not only the weight of passengers but also their luggage or carry-on bags.
“I really like that aspect,” she said.
Accurately converting fuel volumes is an essential skill with countries like Canada and the U.S. using both the Metric and Imperial systems. As a result of a mixup between litres and gallons that left the plane with but a fraction of its required fuel load, an Air Canada flight back in 1983 that later became known as the Gimli Glider had ran out of fuel midway through its flight, forcing the pilot to conduct an emergency landing at a former Royal Canadian Air Forces base in Gimli, Manitoba that had been converted into a race track. That close call, in which no one sustained any injuries with only light damage to the Boeing 767, emphasized the importance of having qualified number crunchers on the ground.
Yet Rosevear candidly confessed having never previously considered a career path in the industry.
“I hadn’t really explored into aviation. I was more sticking my guns with math and science and I was more looking at (becoming) like a biologist or a bio chemist,” she said.
But when one of the school’s educational assistants brought the new program to her attention, Rosevear said “That just kind of sparked my interest. I’ve been really loving it.”
She encourages other students who might be interested in any aspects involved in the world of aviation to consider the program.
“I definitely think that if someone’s interested in becoming a pilot, or even just testing the waters, that this ground school is definitely a good opportunity,” she said.
“The pilots tell you all what needs to happen and give you a bunch of insight and tips, and then you learn all the basic stuff.”
Although future sessions are already fully booked, there is a wait list. And to be considered for admission into the program, students that are recommended by their school’s staff must be on track to graduate with an interest in aviation.
According to a press statement prepared by Woodward, students who complete the ground school training may then choose to take the next step if they’re so inclined by enrolling to obtain their private pilot’s license or exploring other potential career opportunities in the industry.
Woodward also said in response to follow-up questions that the school division has enjoyed and appreciated a long-term relationship with Sky Wings Aviation, which has previously sponsored students and continues to do so.
“In past years, Chinook’s Edge saw one or two students participating in the aviation opportunity at that time,” she said.
However, as a result of changes to career credits from Alberta Education back in 2017, the school division was no longer able to provide the opportunity in the same way until now, she added.
“Recent changes to these career credits have allowed Chinook’s Edge to re-engage with Sky Wings to bring ground school training back to our students,” she said.
“Chinook’s Edge considers this a new start to providing this opportunity for students, based on a valued long-term relationship with Sky Wings Aviation, and we are excited to be able to expand experiences for our students who are thinking of an aviation career.”
